The HRD Ministry has decided against conducting NEET, the medical entrance exam, twice a year and also dropped its ambitious plan of holding it only in online mode, officials said.
 

The decision has been taken following recommendations from the Health Ministry, which raised concerns about conducting the exam twice a year saying that such an arrangement may put additional pressure on students. The Health Ministry also voiced concern about students living in rural areas, who may suffer if the exam is conducted in online mode only.

Last month, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had announced that the newly-formed National Testing Agency (NTA) would conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, along with the Joint Entrance Examination-Main for admission to engineering colleges, twice a year.

He had also announced that all exams conducted by NTA would be computer-based. The Health Ministry then wrote to the HRD Ministry voicing its concerns. "The change in the NEET exam pattern as against the statement earlier, which will now be a single exam in pen-and-paper mode and in the same number of languages as has been conducted last year, is on the request of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which wanted the same pattern followed last year to be maintained," a senior HRD Ministry official said.

Subsequent to the tentative schedule released by the ministry last month, the HRD Ministry today made public the final schedule of examinations to be conducted by NTA till May, 2019. NEET will be conducted on May 5, 2019. 

"NTA is also establishing a countrywide network of test practice centres (TPCs) for students of rural areas so that everyone will have an opportunity to practice before the exam. The TPCs will have a downloaded Computer Based Test (CBT) which will be similar to the actual test to be conducted on the exam day," the official said.

"The practice tests will help the candidates to familiarise themselves with logging into the system, going through the detailed instructions regarding the test, using the mouse or numeric keyboard on screen (virtual) for attempting each question, scrolling down to the next question, navigating between questions, reviewing and editing their options and submit questions," he added.